Listen Up! No. 9: Laura Marling - Made By Maid

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(Nu-) Folk doesn't always mean ukelele's, banjos and a horribly misjudged faux-authenticity - Marling once again proves herself head and shoulders above her contemporaries (and lovers).

Listen Up! No.8: Japandroids - Sovereignty

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A relative oldie now, but their new No Singles companion (more like afterthought) LP to last year's buzz-saw classic Post-Nothing reminded me just how good this Canadian duo can be with four chords and some shouty double-tracking.

Listen Up! No.7: The New Pornographers - Silver Jenny Dollar

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Dan Bejar aims for his best British accent and comes out sounding somewhere between Brett Anderson and David Bowie (is there a difference?). Meanwhile, the rest of the band approximate The Auteurs circa New Wave. A distinctly anglophile affair from the Vancouver groovers.

Listen Up! No.6: Allo Darlin' - My Heart Is a Drummer

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Clearly the chorus is 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' by Cindi Lauper, but who's complaining? The rest of the S/T record (which drops on June 7th) isn't bad either.

Listen Up! No.5: Thao with the Get Down Stay Down - When We Swam

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This chirpy tale of impotence is the perfect example of how miserable themes can be married to melody which sounds like the musical equivalent of a toddler at Christmas. Happy, that is. And yeh, I interviewed them, what of it?

Listen Up! No.1: Nada Surf - Love Goes On

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Yes, it's a Go-Betweens cover. It's also the pick of the tracks off the band's new covers record, If I Had a Hi-fi. If I had a hi-fi (which I do), I'd mostly be playing this (which I am).